The Dead Republic, by Roddy Doyle: the Wisdom of Comic Heroism
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The Dead Republic, by Roddy Doyle: The Wisdom of Comic Heroism AÍDA DÍAZ BILD Institution address: Universidad de La Laguna. Depto. Filología Inglesa y Alemana. Facultad de Filología. Campus de Guajara. 38071 La Laguna. Tenerife. E-mail: [email protected] ORCID: 0000-0002-7543-5872 Received: 22/01/2018. Accepted: 14/06/2018. How to cite this article: Díaz Bild, Aída. “The Dead Republic, by Roddy Doyle: The Wisdom of Comic Heroism.” ES Review. Spanish Journal of English Studies, vol. 39, 2018, pp. 233‒54. DOI: https://doi.org/10.24197/ersjes.39.2018.233-254 Abstract: Roddy Doyle is a writer who has reflected that human existence is an interplay between comedy and tragedy, and that therefore all kinds of evils—fanaticism, absolutism, dogmatism— result from cultivating only the tragic perspective. This becomes obvious in The Dead Republic (2010), a novel in which Henry Smart’s comic attitude to life allows Doyle to offer the reader a detached and non-sentimental view of contemporary Irish history. Both John Ford and the IRA want to reshape Henry’s story as a Republican hero to fit their own notion of Irishness and it is precisely in Henry’s response to this perversion of Irish history, politics and national identity that he reveals himself as the perfect comic hero and debunks all efforts to mystify the past. Keywords: Roddy Doyle; The Dead Republic; myth; comic hero; tragic vision; subversion. Summary: An approach to comic heroism. Subversion of Irish myth and identity in The Dead Republic. Henry Smart as the incarnation of the comic hero. Resumen: Roddy Doyle es un escritor que ha reflejado cómo la existencia humana es una combinación de comedia y tragedia, y que, por tanto, todos los grandes males—fanatismo, absolutismo, dogmatismo—son el resultado de atender solo a la dimensión trágica. Esto se hace patente en The Dead Republic (2010), una novela en la que la actitud cómica ante la vida de Henry Smart permite a Doyle ofrecer al lector una visión objetiva en absoluto sentimental de la historia irlandesa contemporánea. Tanto John Ford como el IRA intentan adaptar la historia de Henry como héroe republicano a su noción de lo que es lo irlandés y precisamente en su respuesta a esta perversión de la historia, de la política y de la identidad nacional irlandesa, Henry se nos revela como el perfecto héroe cómico que subvierte todo esfuerzo de mistificar la realidad. Palabras clave: Roddy Doyle; The Dead Republic; mito; héroe cómico; visión trágica; subversión. Sumario: Un acercamiento al heroísmo cómico. La subversión del mito y la identidad irlandeses en The Dead Republic. Henry Smart como encarnación del héroe cómico. This work is licensed under CC-BY-NC. ES REVIEW. SPANISH JOURNAL OF ENGLISH STUDIES 39 (2018): 233‒54 E-ISSN 2531-1654 | ISSN 2531-1646 234 Aída Díaz Bild Bakhtin, one of the most relevant thinkers of the twentieth century, dedicates much of his work to examining the distinctive features of novelistic discourse. Bakhtin believes that the novel is the only genre which continues to develop and therefore has no canon of its own: “It is plasticity itself. It is a genre that is every questing, ever examining itself and subjecting its established forms to review” (The Dialogic Imagination 39). The novel parodies other genres exposing the stylization of their forms and language. This peculiar capacity for ridiculing another’s language and another’s direct discourse derives from the parodic-travestying genres of ancient Greek and Rome, such as the satyr plays and the Atellan farces, which prepared the ground for the novel. Bakhtin emphasises how these diverse forms of laughter transformed language from the absolute dogma into a working hypothesis for understanding and describing reality and thus forced men to experience a different and contradictory reality: “Such laughter paved the way for the impiety of the novelistic form” (59). All these serio-comical genres that are the authentic predecessors of the novel introduce the element of laughter to destroy fear and reverence before an object, before a world, bringing us close to them and allowing us to analyse, question and revaluate them. Laughter liberates from censorship, dogmas, prohibition, violence. Conrad Hyers, for whom to understand comedy is to understand humanity (1), agrees with Bakhtin that the absence of a comic perspective leads to intolerance, dogmatism, fanaticism. Tragedy leads to alienation, guilt, rage and horror, and celebrates certain virtues—courage, loyalty, duty, honour, pride, absolute devotion, uncompromising dedication—which, unfortunately, have coloured our common understanding of what constitutes to be heroic and have generated all kinds of evils.1 By putting their lives in the defence of some good cause or ambition, by their blind obedience to certain noble concerns and sacred principles, tragic heroes have only produced death and destruction: “In the name of duty and loyalty, honor or prestige, God and 1 Aristotle’s definition of comedy in Poetics as “an imitation of inferior people—not, however, with respect to every kind of defect: the laughable is a species of what is disgraceful” (9) has led to the belief that tragedy is more serious and profound than comedy and has become the basis for the theory of humour. In the last decades scholars from different disciplines have worked to eliminate the existing prejudices against comedy and vindicate its positive, creative and liberating character. ES REVIEW. SPANISH JOURNAL OF ENGLISH STUDIES 39 (2018): 233‒54 E-ISSN 2531-1654 | ISSN 2531-1646 The Dead Republic, by Roddy Doyle 235 country, it sacrifices the very people involved on the altar of principle and virtue” (Hyers 50). This explains why the tragic vision needs to be tempered and humanized by the comic vision which introduces a different spirit and other kinds of virtues: playfulness, childlikeness, humour, laughter, light- heartedness, meekness, humility, flexibility, moderation, willingness to compromise, sympathy and empathy, generosity, nurturing, affection, love. Unlike the tragic hero, the comic hero is not interested in retribution or justice, but in accommodation, compassion, forgiveness and mercy. The comic hero does not get trapped by frustrating aspirations and wrenching conflicts because his commitment is to life and the basics of life. His defence is of persons more than principles: “‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath’ might well serve as a comic motto. The ethic of comedy is situational” (Hyers 66). Because of his flexibility, which does not allow him to be destroyed by rigid principles or absolute seriousness, the comic hero is better adapted for survival. He is capable of standing apart from and adapting to whatever the circumstances: “It is a resilience of spirit which can reassert itself when life is coming up daffodils or coming up dandelions or coming up with nothing at all” (166). The comic spirit is always linked to a stubborn affirmation of life, despite its problems, absurdities and contradictions. Even in those comedies that end in defeat we are left with a sense of faith renewed and hope rekindled, because the aim of comedy is not to conquer death or ignore suffering but to renew and celebrate life: If the tragic hero is concerned with heroism, superiority, national pride, vengeance, tenacity at all cost, the comic figure pays attention to ordinary affairs and ordinary people: “Ordinary values are not superficial but basic; ordinary people are not ignoble, but the salt of the earth” (44). He knows perfectly well what life is mainly about: food, fun, sex, love, family, friends and a good night’s sleep. Hyers emphasises that the comic vision possesses a greater appreciation for the muddiness and ambiguities of human nature: people and circumstances are not so neatly divisible into black and white, light and dark, right and wrong, as tragic heroism has always defended: “Basic to the various forms of comic heroism is the same thesis—comically understood—that we are creatures of very diverse, and often opposite tendencies” (60). The comic hero accepts the manyness of the self and others, destroying all the boxes and badges with which we label our lives and attempt to confine others. The result, according to Hyers, is a ES REVIEW. SPANISH JOURNAL OF ENGLISH STUDIES 39 (2018): 233‒54 E-ISSN 2531-1654 | ISSN 2531-1646 236 Aída Díaz Bild renewed sense of freedom and a larger vision of humanity: “And if there is any ‘salvation’ forthcoming, it comes in the candid—rather than tortured—acceptance and even enjoyment, of this ambiguousness” (61). John Morreall, an American philosopher who shares most of Hyers’s premises, points out that the ability to laugh at our own foibles and shortcomings is essential to the development of any moral perspective: “Seeing oneself objectively is also important in being honest with oneself, rather than rationalizing one’s shortcomings, and so humor can contribute to self-knowledge and integrity” (“Comic Vices” 19). This capacity to see our failures and mistakes makes us wiser, an idea brilliantly summarized by Marcel Gutwirth: “to laugh in the face of folly (our own) and lostness (our own), however wistfully, is to reach for the prize of wisdom” (187). Morreall also underlines that whereas the tragic hero shows respect for authority and tradition and does not question the patterns of thought which he inherits, the comic protagonist is absolutely critical: “Comic protagonists... point out incongruities, in language, in people’s reasoning, and, more generally, in the established order of things” (“The Comic” 342).2 Roddy Doyle is a writer who has reflected that human existence is some interplay between comedy and tragedy and that therefore all kinds of evils result from cultivating only the tragic perspective. This becomes obvious in The Dead Republic (2010), the final volume in Roddy Doyle’s trilogy The Last Roundup, which aims to re-examine the history of Ireland in the twentieth century through its central character, Henry Smart.